Citizens and expats based in Dubai will have access to the Middle East’s first digital health library, thanks to a ground-breaking partnership between the Osteopathic Health Centre, Dubai, and ORCHA (the Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Apps), the world’s largest app review and distribution company.
The Centre, founded in 2000, takes a holistic approach to medicine, specialising in non-invasive and manual therapies.
This one-year contract, which has an option to renew for a further two years, will complement the Centre’s existing offer, allowing a projected 40,000 customers in the country to access a library of top-rated health apps, to support with everything from smoking cessation to mental health support, to allergies to obesity.
An additional key focus for the app library will be family medicine, an area which provides family members with support on sexual health, ante- and post-natal care and family planning plus a broad range of physical conditions.
As part of the partnership, ORCHA will provide all the Centre’s practitioners with CPD accredited training in how to use digital health plus an online Digital Health Formulary, which will enable apps to be selected and prescribed in the same way as traditional medicines are prescribed.
A full library of apps will be hosted on the Centre’s web pages, each of which has been tested against more than 350 digital health standards and meet crucial ISO 82304-2 benchmarks. Patients will also be able to browse and learn about what’s available, helping them to self-manage conditions from their homes.
Nargis Raza, Proprietor and Director of the Centre, said:
“Digital health is an idea whose time has come, for our country and our region. Evidence is mounting year by year that apps improve outcomes. For example, only 2% of those with COPD today use an app, yet clinical studies confirm that the right apps can improve outcomes and reduce the need for medical appointments.
“Many of our patients experience chronic back pain and we’ll be using our app library to recommend the best apps to help them self-manage this debilitating condition at home, as part of our care programme.”
Her Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for the Middle East, Simon Penney, said:
“Digital technologies have been at the heart of the public health response to Covid-19 worldwide and we’ve all learned that with digital on hand, we can do far more with less. It’s heartening to see Dubai’s Osteopathic Health Centre leading the way in the Middle East with this forward-thinking contract with ORCHA. The centre’s patients will benefit in so many ways and I hope this is the start of a leap forward in digital health for the country and the entire region.”
ORCHA business development director, George Kowalski, who will be overseeing the project, said:
“When it comes to digital health, the UAE is at a turning point. The population is very mobile, as we have so many expats in the country, and a by-product of this over the last year has been an increased COVID-19 infection rate. Medical practitioners haven’t been able to see enough patients, due to strict safety protocols. Being able to give patients access to high-quality, safe apps will be transformational.
“We are here to support the Centre with its innovative project and part of that will mean engaging with patients and professionals to help them understand the benefits of health apps.
“In the future we’d like to see digital health technologies adopted across the entire UAE, along with a standardised approach, in the same way that Europe’s Nordic states are working together to create a unified platform across five independent countries. The result will be improved healthcare access for millions of people.”
ORCHA would like to congratulate the mental health app, Feeling Good, on being amongst the first products to become compliant with the new Digital Technology Assessment Criteria for health and social care (DTAC) – this is a fantastic achievement.
The Feeling Good app offers Positive Mental Training audio programmes based on scientific research, which can help with stress, anxiety and depression by building resilience and developing positive feelings.
ORCHA independently assessed the solution against the clinical safety, data protection, technical security, interoperability and usability and accessibility standards detailed in the DTAC and we are pleased to say Feeling Good meets each of the criteria outlined.
The DTAC, developed by the NHS and launched in 2021, is a new advisory assessment criteria for commissioning digital health technologies in the NHS and social care services. ORCHA is able to support innovators and health & care providers who want to have digital health products assessed against all of the DTAC criteria. This may be a solution you have developed, or a product you intend to use as part of practice.
Please get in touch to request a DTAC review and to discuss the options available today.
Dr Lloyd Humphreys, former head of Europe at SilverCloud, a global leader in digital mental health, has joined ORCHA (the Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Apps) in the newly-created role of managing director.
Dr Humphreys joins the ORCHA team following a period of accelerated growth for the organisation, with searches of ORCHA app libraries by UK healthcare staff rising by 6500% during the pandemic. The firm now works with 70% of NHS regions and in eleven other countries.
Prior to SilverCloud, Dr Humphreys co-founded Breaking Free Online and helped to scale Patients Know Best, a personal health record system, which was one of the first services chosen to become an NHS Innovation Accelerator. He remains an alumnus of the NHS Innovation Accelerator programme.
Liz Ashall-Payne, founding CEO of ORCHA, said: “Lloyd’s experience of founding digital health companies and scaling them up will be invaluable for ORCHA following a dramatic two years for ourselves and the whole industry. We need to grow globally whilst retaining our core vision and values. We’re absolutely delighted to have him on board.”
Dr Humphreys said: “Digital health has fast forwarded five years in about 18 months. This will lead to huge opportunity but also risk. The global digital market can feel like the wild west and so whilst there are thousands of great apps out there, the ability to find and choose evidence based and high quality solutions can be difficult, for professional users as well as citizens.
“There’s a massive opportunity for ORCHA to lead the way, being the globally trusted source of digital health. This has not only commercial benefit but social impact, driving an organisation on a mission to enable better physical and mental health in many countries around the world.
“COVID-19 has forced digital transformation but the important time is coming up. As we go back to face-to-face care, we have to decide whether we bring back old ways of working or whether we keep the momentum going. I feel incredibly positive about the future potential of digital as we are now all asking the right questions.”
Dr Humphreys is a qualified clinical psychologist and completed an executive MBA at the European School of Management and Technology in Berlin. He has been acknowledged as one of the Top 100 Health Tech Influencers.
The nationals this week highlighted ORCHA’s research into the quality of health and care apps.
Health app usage has boomed by 25% since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic – equivalent to an extra five million downloads every day. But research shows that only around 20% of these apps are safe, secure, and meet clinical standards.
With approximately 370,000 health and care apps available online, it can be difficult to sort those that can be trusted as safe to use, from those that may potentially be harmful. ORCHA’s independent Review evaluates digital health solutions against 350+ criteria to determine their quality assurance. Reviewed, quality assured apps are distributed via ORCHA’s Digital Health Libraries, so that patients and professionals have transparency as to which health and care apps are safe to use.
Read more in the coverage below:
To find quality assured digital health solutions, visit ORCHA’s App Library.